Legionnaires’: Distillery shuts as cooling tower comes under scrutiny

By NATALIE WALKER

Published on Saturday 9 June 2012 00:51

A DISTILLERY being investigated as one of the potential sources of a lethal outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease has stopped production following a health and safety warning,

• Health and safety body serve distillery company with notice for failure to control risk of Legionnaires’ disease

• All three cooling towers in Wheatfield Road have been shut down by company

• Issuing of improvement notice ‘does not mean that this cooling tower has been identified as source of outbreak’

The move came as news of 13 further confirmed and suspected cases of the disease were announced, taking the total number of people being treated to 74.

Fourteen people are now critically ill in hospital with Legionnaires’.

The Health Safety Executive (HSE) yesterday served an Improvement Notice on North British Distillery Company for alleged failures in adequately controlling the risk of legionella in one of the cooling towers at its Edinburgh site.

It refers to the company’s tower in Wheatfield Road, in the Gorgie area of the south west of the city, where most of the people who have fallen ill either live or work. Around 100 people are employed at the distillery.

The tower was one of 23 in the city to have been “shock treated” with chemicals to kill off any legionella and tested for traces of the bug.

An HSE spokeswoman said: “The notice was served for a failure to devise and implement a sustained and effective biocide control programme in one cooling tower.”

The HSE issues notices if it finds correct procedures are not being followed. It can then ask for urgent action to be taken to improve safety and set a deadline for the work.

A spokesman for North British Distillery said the company – a grain distiller for a number of top blended whisky brands including The Famous Grouse, Black Label, Cutty Sark and Johnnie Walker – had stopped distillation at its Edinburgh site since Thursday,

He said: “We voluntarily took our three cooling towers off-line until the legionella results from samples taken earlier this week are reported. While this precautionary operation is under way we have temporarily ceased distillation.

“Ensuring the health and safety of our employees and the local community is our highest priority. Our thoughts are clearly with the families of those affected by this situation.”

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said investigations were continuing at the five other sites being looked at as the source of the disease, which has already claimed the life of father-of-two Robert Aird, 56, of Edinburgh.

She said: “Investigations into the source of this outbreak are continuing. It is important to note that in issuing this notice the HSE does not believe there is an immediate risk to workers or members of the public. Nor can it be assumed that this tower is the source of the outbreak.

“Investigations into all of the other towers in the area are continuing.”

The Scottish Government last night revealed people in four other parts of the UK are being treated for Legionnaire’s, one in Glasgow, one in Lanarkshire, one in Tayside and another in the north of England. All of them are believed to have visited Edinburgh recently.

A total of 28 people have now been confirmed as having Legionnaires’ disease and another 46 are suspected of having it. Ten patients have improved enough to be sent home from hospital, health chiefs said.

Ms Sturgeon said contingency plans had been made in case of a further rise in patients.

She said: “As we expected, we have seen a rise in the number of cases associated with this outbreak.

“NHS Lothian continues to be very busy and contact has been made with other health boards in case capacity at other hospitals is required.”

She said the risk to the public remained “low” and stressed that the bug could not be passed from person to person or from drinking water.

Dr Duncan McCormick, consultant in public health medicine at NHS Lothian, warned more cases were likely to emerge this weekend as it can take up to a fortnight for people who have been infected to show symptoms.

He said: “We expect that the numbers of patients affected will peak over the weekend and then begin to fall as we move into the beginning of next week

“We’re doing everything we can in terms of early diagnosis, appropriate treatment and intensive care, but I think we can’t rule out any further deaths at this stage.”

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Comments

There are 11 comments to this article

#10 Voices, Not enough spurious capital letters thrown in, must try harder!


in Charles Linskaill’s head
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is the year 2012, And Much is Known about Pompous Commenters’ disease, It is one of Gross Stupidity, this Pompous Commenters’ disease outbreak has taken place on the Scotsman Website, And the Edinburgh Evening News are as much to blame, They are the ones who let us have a login for their new website, to display our ignorance, But have no preventative Rules for Pompous Old Imbeciles, This is a utter nuisance to you all, And the Scotsman must take the blame in this Dreadful Scenario of vacuous pontificating, of the Pompous Commenters’ disease.


As health and safety standards have gone back to the Dark Ages, lets bring back public flogging. www.fifepatients.com


Questions

1. Diageo are 50% shareholders in NBD. Is it a coincidence that they announced big investment in Scotland earlier in the week? Is announcing the money “will be spent in the next 5 years” really as impressive as it could be PR knowing that NBD was in trouble?

2. Why has the HSE said it may never find the source of the outbreak – in my experience that is never their attitude, is that a politically motivated statement, if so it brings them into disrepute.

3. Why did NHS lothian announce that Robert Air had underlying health conditions the minute he died – that could be a serious breach of patient confidentiality.

4. Why has no one mentioned the fact that the bacteria in question is a strain of legionella pneumophila, as that is its correct scientific label. Also, it is really not able to spread over more than a few hundred metres without dispersing , unless there are exceptional atmospheric conditions that could explain high exposure on a building site where. Mr Air worked

5. Did the council know where all these cooling towers were – there should have been one file containing registration documents.


The next time you buy a bottle of whisky, remember that this company cared so little about the safety of the people in the surrounding community that the HSE had to serve an improvement notice for them to get their act sorted out.

The HSE does not serve improvement notices lightly. There must have been significant safety failings.


THis is a huge problem for Lamont and her bunch of cackling desk slappers – how on earth are they going to manage to come up woth a reason to blame the dastardly SNP for the outbreak.


all these companies should be moved to the outskirts of Edinburgh


~3. Jools in Edinburgh, Never said they had!


The Health and Safety Executive has nothing to do with Edinburgh Council


It is the year 2012, And Much is Known about Legionnaires’ disease, It is one of Gross Complacency this Legionnaires’ disease outbreak has taken place in Edinburgh, And the Edinburgh Council are as much to blame, They are the ones who set the Laws for our Pubs, and licensed premises, to protect our welfare, But have no similar Laws for Deadly Cooling Towers, This is a utter disgrace to us all, And the Edinburgh Council must shed their blame in this Dreadful Scenario of Edinburgh’s outbreak, of the legionnaires’ disease.


The Company directors have a lot of explaining to do. www.fifepatients.com


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